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Everyone is pretty clear on what the bride and her mother will be up to for the duration of your engagement: planning a wedding! Some women give the impression that they've been planning this event in their head since the first wedding they attended at the age of six, and now the starting pistol has fired in real life, look out!

Thing is, your mom's a woman, too, and maybe she's been planning a wedding in her head, too. Only (in this wedding at any rate) she's got a son, not a daughter. What does the mother of the groom do?

While she doesn't do as much as the mother of the bride, there are a few things that are just for her.

You've agreed to propose the toast to the bride. Even though you've known her for years, when you start to consider what you might say, you draw a complete blank. You've never been great at public speaking. Where do you start? Gary Drevitch at Freelance Dad consulted with experts as Toastmasters International, and came up with these tips:

Brainstorm. Jot down everything you can think of about the bride. List her good points, special memories you have, why she and her beloved make a good couple. The brainstorming will give you a general outline for your toast. Research will fill in the gaps.

Know your audience. Don't say anything to annoy or embarrass the bride and groom, and keep it clean.

Write it all out so you can practice it, but when the time comes, use short notes. A cue-card or two should be enough; ten typed pages is too much!

Sound like yourself.

Start with a joke, end with sentiment. As Drevitch notes, "One of the classic rules of wedding toasting is to end by tugging on the heartstrings. If you can't be sentimental at a wedding, where can you?"

Keep it short. Toastmasters suggests three to four minutes, but we can guarantee that if you want to make it shorter than that, your audience will not object!

The wine-kind, not the kitchen appliance.

One of the traditional duties of the male contingent, toasting can be done either by a specially-appointed (or even hired) MC, but most often it's done by the best man.

Anywhere you look, you can find a list of who toasts whom, in what order, and with what. Thing is, all the lists are different. Who toasts whom, in what order? Who knows?

This can be a good thing. With so many possibilities, you can do it any way you like! Another piece of even better news:

Fathers of the bride are often given no more than a passing sentence in the etiquette books, and it's an expensive one: "Traditionally, the wedding and reception are paid for by the bride's family." As bridal couples are more and more likey to have been living independently (and, most of the time, together) for some while before the wedding, they are also more and more likely to be paying for their own wedding. An increasing percentage of brides escort their own selves down the aisle.

Which leaves dad doing ... what, exactly? Some dads don't want anything more. Some are perfectly content to wear what they're told, show up when and where they're told, and otherwise stay out of the limelight.

If you'd like more input than that on this most important day, there are a few things you can be doing that your daughter will truly appreciate. Experienced FOTB Ken York has a few pointers for you. The first one starts with not your daughter, but her mother. Give her something (Ken suggests jewelery), and with the gift say something sweet and thoughtful about all her hard work in raising this lovely young woman. If that doesn't make you Man of the Year (or at least the Hour) in her heart, we don't know what will.

Other tips?

It wasn't exactly what she'd planned. What she'd planned was a quiet, intimate beach wedding: three bridesmaids, three groomsmen, and about twenty guests on the empty white, windswept sands of Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.

What they encountered instead was the annual Cape Fear Kite Festival. Multi-colored kites, children running freely across the sands, a few SUVs parked here and there, tents for the kite-flying patrons of the festival.

It would be the perfect opportunity for a Bridezilla-style meltdown, wouldn't you think? Her small, private wedding invaded by dozens (hundreds?) of exuberant strangers. If anyone was entitled to feel thoroughly ripped off, it would be this bride. But no. Even though she had no idea until she arrived her wedding coincided with the festival, she commented that "... everyone with the kite festival has been so nice. Besides, the important thing is that I am getting married."

So, if your flowers aren't quite the color you were expecting, if your groom is late, your flower girl refuses to walk down the aisle, or the wedding cake never shows up ... remember: The important thing is that you are getting married.

One of the perks of tying the knot -- other than all eyes focused adoringly on you and the free reign of the cake table -- is the ability to register for things you need (or just really want) and then having them magically appear on your doorstep or on your gift table at no charge to you. But if you aren't careful and you don't put a little thought into what you're asking for, you may get a coffee pot when you don't drink coffee or three full sets of red wine glasses because they were all too pretty to pass up (I may have some personal experience with that last one).

Here are a few tips to consider when you set out to put together the perfect wedding registry:

We recently attended and helped out at a wedding that started pretty much on time (unusual, we know), but, as the bride and her father were heading down the aisle, five more guests walked up to the church door. Fortunately, we were able to keep them from opening the door until the wedding was underway, but it made us think about how important it is for guests to be punctual.

Obviously it's hugely important that, as a wedding guest, you don't arrive late, or you risk disrupting the nuptials. But, being too early is a problem, too -- pictures are often taken in the ceremony location up until 30 minutes or so before the wedding, so if you're earlier than that, you could interrupt the photographer (or the florist, or the minister, etc.).

If the invitation says 5:00 p.m., aim to arrive around 4:45 -- 10 to 15 minutes early is safe and sure to be appreciated by the bride and groom.

Did you specify a dress code on your invitations? Etiquette says no to this, but is there anything a guest could wear that you would find unforgivable? At weddingchannel.com, brides on this message board are pretty relaxed about how their guests flaunt their stuff. Unless! They wear something blatantly disrespectful. Think jeans, rock concert T and tennis shoes or something just a wee bit too revealing. It also still seems fairly taboo for guests to wear white. What's your stance on guest dress? What would you do if someone was inappropriately clad at your wedding?

Have you ever gone to a wedding and felt like you weren't included? Not a flash-back-to-8th-grade-cliques feeling, but just a feeling that you're not quite getting a personal connection to the couple. Maybe you don't know them well or maybe you've lost touch over time, but you definitely don't feel personally included in all the festivities.

When you make your wedding plans, you want to try to reach out and create that personal connection for all your guests, because, well, they'll just have a better time that way. Everyone wants to feel like they know you – or got to know you better – at your wedding. Here are some ways to reach out to guests who might not be in your daily inner circle of friends.

Welcome out-of-towners. Welcome packets with local restaurants, entertainment options, and in-room snacks offer convenience and make guests feel at home. Short on time? Even a simple greeting card saying, "Welcome Aunt Mabel and Uncle Oscar. FI and I are so glad you're here and are looking forward to seeing you tomorrow" can provide that personal touch.

Here in North America, we have decided that it's tacky to ask for money at your wedding. This is a little ironic since by the standards of some other cultures, the whole North American Big White Wedding Industry is itself an exercise in the very tacky. All this proves is that "tacky" is relative. What would have horrified etiquette mavens of another time is perfectly acceptable today; what seems awful to us is fine to another culture. And you know what? No one's right, no one's wrong. It is what it is.

Enter the "Buy our Honeymoon" website. Now, even those among us who actually did ask her guests to contribute to her honeymoon (there's at least on one staff here) found this name a bit, well, tacky. But when we investigated a little further, we were pleasantly surprised.

Dear AisleDash,

I just found out that our reception venue charges for parking. It's only a few bucks per car, but I had no idea when I booked the place! Am I supposed to pay for all my guests to park? If not, how do I tell them? What's the etiquette here?

~Urban Bride

Dear Urban,

You do not necessarily have to pay for all of your guests to park, but it would be a very nice thing for you to do. You do have to tell them in advance, so that they're not "hit with surprise charges," as they say. The best way for you to do this is to include an insert with your invitations explaining the charge for parking, and also mapping the area to point out the nearest free parking.

If your invitations have already gone out, it seems to me that you will have to just pay for everyone's parking at this point, because there is no proper way to spring this on guests now. Many of them won't bring cash with them to your ceremony and will be in a bind when they get to your reception venue if there is a charge they aren't prepared for.

Alternatively, have you considered hiring a wedding shuttle? If everyone is staying in the same hotel, a shuttle to the ceremony and reception sites and back can be a very nice way to tackle this problem. With a shuttle available, if people still choose to drive themselves, then the burden of parking fees is on them, not you.

Do you have a question for Ask AisleDash? Use the Contact AisleDash link at the top of the page, or leave it in the comments section. And be sure to look for our answers every Thursday.

You're just a couple of weeks away from your wedding. Everything is going perfectly until "it" happens. Your bridesmaid breaks her leg and has to drop out. What do you do?

First, don't panic. It may seem like a big deal when you first hear about it, but it won't ruin your wedding. Promise.

You have several options. If you have another friend who can fill in, go ahead and ask. Will she be able to get a dress in time? You'll need to consider whether she can (and whether she'll be happy you asked or upset that she wasn't asked in the first place).

You could ask your fiance to drop a groomsman, but tread carefully here. Does he have a buddy who wouldn't mind dropping out too? If you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, consider the next option.

Let the parties be uneven. Yes, you read that right. It's perfectly okay to have one more guy. It doesn't have to be a big deal. It's your wedding after all, and you can have any number that you'd like in your wedding party. Even an odd number.

So tell us, what option would you prefer?



Image: SimonShaw (creative commons attribution on Flickr)

Whether you, the bridal couple, need it not, your guests will want to give you a present. So how do you avoid being on the receiving end of a bunch of unwanted items? You could ask for cash but that can be a bit awkward.

For UK brides and grooms, there is a nicer way of asking your guests to dole out a wad of bank notes. It's called The Bottom Drawer.

This is how it works:

• You register with them, then direct your guests to the website.
• Guests can then choose to donate money to a specific item on your gift list.
• There are six categories of gifts for you to choose from, including paying towards a new kitchen, or your honeymoon.
  
• Guests choose a category on your list and make a payment

Wednesday Wedding Wrap-up is a weekly roundup of highlights from the past week, covering wedding blogs and websites, reality TV, even particularly hot scoop right here at AisleDash. Think we missed something? Leave your favorite highlight in the comments!

Manolo for the Brides takes a look at menus and reminds us how lucky we are to have the option to get foods from all over the country, even all over the world -- shrimp in the midwest, fruit in the middle of winter, your choices are endless! But planning your wedding menu wasn't always so simple.

iDoSugar discusses the proper amount to spend on a wedding gift -- do you agree?

WeddingBee has a really cool idea for an anniversary (or wedding countdown) present. Even though it didn't actually work out due to storage problems, we still think it's a sweet idea.

Here at AisleDash, Caroline tells us all about a couple who had sex for 101 days in a row. What did they have to say about it? Click here to find out!

There are so many choices on the Internet for wedding invitations and announcements that it's always nice to narrow down the field and find one great site to pick out beautiful and original invites. At Gryphon Stationers, you can select from numerous custom letterpress designs that come in a variety of colors and styles but are all classic and lovely. Choose a bold floral style or a clean, one-color look, and you can choose coordinating pieces to complete your package such as RSVP cards, reception cards, save-the-date cards and thank-you cards.

What's more, there's a section on Gryphon Stationers Web site that offers wedding invitation wording help for all types of invites -- bride's parents hosting, wedding at home, etc.

For more information, such as print times and special color requests, there is a helpful FAQ page.

Enjoy these eye-catching and stunning invites from Gryphon and feel better knowing you've found high-quality invitations at one easy-to-shop spot.

To order or for additional questions, please visit gryphonstationers.com.